Sunday, 20 October 2013

Not so free speech - and what about the hidden 'extras'?

Last week I was at a meeting where the
proposition for a Speakers’ Corner in Douglas came
up (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/should-douglas-get-a-speakers-corner-1-6105204
). Seems one of the attendees had been approached about joining the censorship
(sorry.. ’coordinating) committee, and some of the others had previous
experience of Douglas’s particular take on ‘public/private partnerships’ for
screwing up the lives of ordinary citizens, so the discussion was….well, full
and frank!

The project interests me, though hardly for
any of the pseudo-reasons this pseudo-public body would like. Obviously, as an outspoken
advocate for free speech, the possibility of at least one island venue where
that is finally possible would be nice. Equally obviously, as none of the
partners have any interest in freedom of expression or movement (except how to
stop it) I cannot imagine them creating one.

Here’s an interesting experiment for anyone
who wonders why…

Go to any one of our crapital city’s
shopping centres – all built at great public expense and inconvenience,
including the compulsory purchase or forcible closure by other means of the
small retail premises which used to be there - and take a book with you. Sit
down on one of the benches and read it. Also keep an eye on the second hand of
your wristwatch to time what happens next.

As most of the retail units are empty, and
there are rarely any shoppers, it will surprise you, and enlighten you considerably
as to the real nature of a society in which public bodies (nominally controlled
by taxpayers and voters) pass all real power to corporate bodies who answer to
nobody (least of all their clients/customers or shareholders).

Which leaves me wondering what the real
game is, because the other thing to consider is that optimum control of punters
passing through a retail area in order to ensure maximum spending in minimal
time and with minimal expenditure is crucial to it. So why would a blatantly
commercial enterprise disrupt that with an activity which clogs up the pavement,
generates no direct income, and distracts potential punters who might be
throwing away their earnings on expensive tat instead?

Perhaps the answer is that we are about to
be distracted into giving away any real rights of free speech and assembly.

In the ‘old’ Strand Street it was possible to stop and
shoot the breeze with folk you met, even hand out leaflets for good causes or
ask the public to sign petitions. Nobody worried, and the police rarely moved
you on, just as long as you didn’t physically inhibit passers-by doing serious
shopping. Similarly, the Sally Ann and other musicians, for example, played
Xmas carols, and again, as long as they didn’t huddle in shop doorways and
block the way in or out neither shopkeepers nor the public complained.

About ten years ago that started changing,
to the extent that now only pointless and ineffective charities or campaign
groups can mount ‘actions’ and buskers have to audition in front of some
clueless Douglas Council committee, leaving only the worst free to perform.
There is no legal precedent for this, it just happened because civil servants
and local politicians were too dumb or lazy to question it when the business
sector ‘suggested’ that it might be more ‘efficient’.

So, once DDP & Co have assigned us
grateful peasants one corner to spout (pre-approved and carefully monitored)
nonsense, the thing to watch is whether they then use bodies like police liaison
committees to ensure anyone expressing an opinion – perfectly legally – anywhere
else in a public area gets moved on.

Who says that crime doesn’t pay? In Douglas, you might be forgiven for thinking it gets a
public sector salary and pension.

About Me

Stuart Hartill is a libertarian and lives on the Isle of Man, so must either choose to be amicably contrarian or get lobotomised and join the herd. An anonymous tax exile there was once quoted by an English journalist to the effect that Manx society is little more than 55,000 alcoholics clinging to a rock.
The population is now nearer 80,000, and everyday life is increasingly dominated by an obnoxious mix of fundamentalist Christians and anal-retentive tax exiles who are no longer welcome anywhere else.
The blogger is none of the above, which makes his life there interesting on even the dullest day and positively hilarious on others.